The Bee of Spelling
by Romiraku
Summary: Zim has already vowed his vengeance against the bees. What happens when he vows vengeance against the most important bee of them all...the Spelling Bee? Will eventually become ZaDf and it would be extremely awesome if you would R&R.
1. Spell to Earn Respect

This story is meant to be a warm up exercise for me in writing, since I haven't written anything fanfiction that I've published before. Because of the nature of the story, only a Zim and Dib friendship is present. I'll come up with more smutty works later on.

In the meantime, any sort of feedback is highly encouraged and will help me write some more.

All Zim could see was the hazy, red sky glaring in through the classroom windows during another one of Ms. Bitters's lectures. It was only one o'clock in the afternoon, and Zim still had two hours of classroom time to sit through. All he could think about was the tests he had to perform on some squirrels Gir had found skittering around his yard the other night. Gir had talked about squirrels all the time, but Zim really had no idea just what kind of creatures they were. He wanted to find out why Gir had talked about them all the time and why they had made Gir misbehave so much.

"Doom, Doom, DOOM...!" Ms. Bitters was letting that dreaded word slither from between her teeth in her usual, annoying, dark fashion. Zim was irritated at letting the words affect his train of thought.

Zim looked down at his desk top, dreading having to wait for those next two hours. He laid his forehead down on the desk and shut his eyes. Maybe he could think more clearly if he didn't have the sight of Ms. Bitters skittering around the classroom in her boots, repeating the word "doom" over and over in that sinister voice of hers. Being able to filter out that scratchy voice was a skill Zim learned to acquire after being in that classroom for nearly a year, and he wasn't about ready to lose it today when he had so much to plan ahead for.

On the opposite side of the classroom, Dib had been playing with his pencil. He noticed a slight movement from Zim out of the corner of his eye and saw him rest his head against the desk top. Dib scowled, frustrated that Zim's apparent nodding off in class had gone unnoticed by Ms. Bitters. As Ms. Bitters continued repeating "doom" over and over again, Dib sunk back into his seat. He then started thinking about Zim.

_If only there was a way to embarrass him in class, then maybe I could catch him off guard and expose him…_

Suddenly, the door slammed open. Everyone sitting in the classroom jumped as Mr. Elliot, one of the many skool teachers, stepped into the classroom.

"Gwuh! I'm awake, I'm awake! I swear I was awake!" Zim started waving his hands frantically in the air. His eyes darted around nervously, looking at the classmates and two teachers that just stared at him. Zim then jumped on top of his desk and turned towards his classmates.

"Oh how awake I was," Zim continued, pointing his finger at the students in the class. "You all have NOTHING on ZIM! NOTHING! All of you human pig-smellies only WISH you could be as amazing as ME! ZIM!" He pumped his fists in the air, throwing a triumphant smile on his face. Ms. Bitters glared at the tiny, disguise-clad alien, and uttered a fierce, low pitched snarl. Zim quickly hopped back down from the desk top and turned his attention towards Mr. Elliot, still standing in the doorway. He stood perplexed at Zim's odd outburst, but finally collected himself as Zim stared blankly at him.

"Hi, kids!" Mr. Elliot's voice was always ecstatic sounding, peppering in enthusiasm wherever it could to make his voice sound even cheerier. It was disturbing to the children, all of whom were well adjusted to Ms. Bitters's harsh way of speaking.

Mr. Elliot, unperturbed by the lack of enthusiasm by the students, continued on. "How are you, kids? Learning about any exciting stuff today?"

One of the kids sitting in class, Melvin, raised his hand and spoke out. "Not really, we're learning about our doomed lives and how we'll all end up being slaves to the capitalistic corporate system and end up as worthless failures." Melvin stared straight back at Mr. Elliot, who looked a bit perturbed at what he had heard.

Ms. Bitters finally spoke up. "Come on, now, I don't have all day to waste with you chit chatting with my students! What do you want?"

Mr. Elliot started feeling uncomfortable in the classroom. He cleared his throat and continued on as all the eyes in the classroom were fixated on him. "Well, as you know, kids, we're in the middle of the skool year. This means it's time for our annual Spelling Bee!"

Most of the kids let out an exasperated groan. The vast majority of kids hated the Spelling Bee, mostly because they hated having to spell just to get the approval of various skool teachers. They also hated having to put up with the ridicule from their fellow peers for spelling common words terribly. Not to mention they had to think! Thinking was always hard.

Mr. Elliot, unfazed by the groans coming from the class, continued on. "As you know, each class will have a showdown to determine the top two spellers from the class. These two spellers will then compete in the skool Spelling Bee, where the winning student will go on to compete in other Spelling Bees and become the champion!"

Dib raised his hand and spoke. "Mr. Elliot, why do we have to do this stupid thing every year? All the same people always win and clearly it's humiliating to a lot of us."

Mr. Elliot looked towards Dib's direction and suddenly put on a grin. " Well, Dib, spelling bees are great for building vocabulary and making new friends! Don't you want to meet some like-minded crazy-I mean, uh, intelligent kids like yourself?"

Dib looked up at Mr. Elliot. "Not really..."

Mr. Elliot's face fell.

"The Almighty ZIM has a question, Mr. Teacher Human," Zim spoke out. All eyes in the classroom fell upon Zim as he continued to speak. "This...Spelling Bee...what do you do to win it? And what DO you win?"

"Oh gosh, Zim, that's easy!" Mr. Elliot's face perked up as there was finally one student interested in the cause he so fervently promoted every year. "You earn all of the respect of your fellow classmates and teachers, and all you have to do is spell words! It's incredibly easy, educational, and fun!"

"Earn respect, eh?" Zim looked to the side and started rubbing his hands together. He began to imagine himself standing on a stage in the skool auditorium, wearing a crown and holding a trophy with a bee positioned on top. Hundreds of classmates were below the stage in the audience, bowing down and chanting his name over and over.

_Zim, Zim, Zim..._ Zim stood before them with his head held high and a smug smile. The chanting continued.

Zim snapped himself out of his daydream and began to chuckle to himself. Mr. Elliot then looked at the clock on the wall above him. "Well, class, I've got to go. But remember, spelling is fun! And don't feel afraid to have fun!" He then quickly dashed out of the classroom. Quiet footsteps could be heard walking away from Ms. Bitters's classroom and into another, and Mr. Elliot's greeting to the next class could be heard. Ms. Bitters made her way up to the front of the classroom and slammed the door shut, startling Zim once more. Zim made no attempt to make himself act like he was paying attention this time around, and instead focused his attention on Ms. Bitters.

"Now, as I was saying...doom, doom, DOOM!"

Ms. Bitters then began pacing around the class once more. Zim sighed and put his head back down on his desk. It was going to be a long two hours.


	2. The Book

**A/N: I want to thank everyone who's read this story so far and given feedback (reviews, follows, faves). I wasn't expecting anyone to have read my story and seeing the positive response is very encouraging. I hope I don't disappoint you!**

**This chapter is about twice the length of the first one, since I wanted there to be a lot of things happening over the course of a few minutes. Some of the episodes in the show capitalize on these end of school day interactions and part of my writing this story is to see how much feeling I could capture from the show without literally copying/pasting actual dialogue from the show. I'm planning on having everything start picking up in the next chapter. **

**...**

**Chapter 2 - The Book**

The clock on the wall bore its hands on the two and eleven marks. Zim was growing impatient; he knew that in Earth time, this meant it was 2:55 P.M. and he was only a short time away from leaving the horrid classroom. He was thankful Ms. Bitters had given up on her doom speech after Mr. Elliot's previous interruption, but he still couldn't make himself interested in the subject she began to talk about. It was something about some war being "civil."

_Since when was any war civil?_ Zim thought to himself.

All Zim could think of to explain something like a war being civil was how whenever the Irken Armada would take over planets, some planets would surrender to The Massive peacefully, and there would be no large conflict at hand. Zim's mind then trailed off to thinking about his mission on Earth, and daydreaming about how great the day his conquest of Earth would be.

Dib was also barely paying attention to Ms. Bitters's lecture. Instead, he found himself engrossed on a colored doodle of Zim without his human disguise on. Dib had made various notes about what the different parts on Zim's body were called. They were very brief notes, however, as Zim was still humanoid in form and shared some similarities to the human body. His only uniquely alien contribution to the page was "antennae." He was about ready to write down one more word, but kept struggling with its spelling.

_Squeedly sputch, no-wait, squeedily spootch?_ Dib repeated the spellings over in his head until he decided to write down _squeedilyspootch._ Satisfied, he wrote the word down on his paper and made a line attached to the word connect to Zim's abdominal area. Smugly, he put his crayon down and looked up at the clock.

2:57. Only three more minutes to go.

Dib grew excited and looked towards Zim's direction. He found Zim with a content expression on his face; his eyes were half-lidded and his smile was genuine. Dib glared at Zim, unhappy with the fact that his adversary was finding comfort and happiness somewhere within his thoughts. Maybe he was thinking about his latest evil scheme? Or maybe he was daydreaming about eating nachos? Whatever the case was, Dib was unhappy with the idea that Zim was so content sitting there, staring at the clock.

"Dib!"

Dib was startled by the sudden shouting of his name and jumped in his seat. As Dib looked around to find where the voice came from, he found that the students and Ms. Bitters were looking right at him. A couple of snickers from some students escaped, The snickering cased Zim to finally look over at Dib, wondering what was going on.

"Dib!" The voice rang out again. It was then he finally snapped back into reality and faced Ms. Bitters, who was the one that was calling him. "Now that I finally have your attention, tell me...how did the doomed Confederate civilians spend their time lamenting over losing their farms?" She menacingly glared at Dib, eager for his response.

Dib looked up at the clock again. It read 2:58.

"Um, well, uh..." Dib was fumbling for an answer. He hadn't been paying attention to the lecture in class for the past half hour due to the drawing of Zim that was laying on his desk top.

"What's the matter, Dib-stink? Not paying attention when you should have been?"

Dib heard the all too familiar voice of Zim ring out in the class. He found Zim looking smugly at him. Dib's expression turned from one of embarrassment to one of irritation.

"It's not like you were paying attention, either, Zim! You were sitting there looking at the clock, and daydreaming about...whatever it was you were daydreaming about!" Dib pointed his finger accusingly at Zim. "I bet you don't even know the answer to the question!"

Zim sat up straighter in his seat as his expression turned snide. "Of course I know the answer, stupid Dib-worm! Now watch me amaze you..." He cleared his throat and turned to look at Ms. Bitters.

"Ms. Bitters, the miserable STINK-humans living in the Cornfederate states sang songs! Songs about their DOOM! Oh how doomed they all were, PI-TI-FUL HU-MANS!" Zim was proud of his answer and smiled towards Ms. Bitters after giving it. Ms. Bitters stared at the green creature sitting in the left corner of the classroom. She shook her head.

"No, Zim," She sneered. "The Confederate civilians sang songs about peanuts, otherwise known as goober peas. Now if you were actually paying attention like you were just mocking Dib for not doing, you would have heard me say that three minutes ago!"

Zim looked confused at Ms. Bitters. "But aren't these _goopy_ peas the same thing as the DOOM that you always speak of?"

"No, Zim, they aren't. Now PAY ATTENTION." Ms. Bitters turned her back to the classroom and began writing words on the chalkboard. As she was writing, Zim looked up at the clock. 2:59. It was so close to the end of class that Zim could feel it. He gripped the sides of his desk top and stared longingly at the minute hand, He was so close to finally getting out of this wretched class for the weekend.

Ms. Bitters finished writing on the board, and stepped aside to let the students read it. The words "SPELLING BEE ON MONDAY" were written in big, bold letters. She then began to address the class.

"Class, we will be having our Spelling Bee on Monday. This will give you adequate time to prepare for your eventual doom over the weekend."

Ms. Bitters walked over to the edge of her desk and pulled a lever. As soon as she pulled the lever, four ceiling tiles swung to the side. A large stack of thick books then plopped onto the desk and started falling over, making a messy pile. The sound of the slick covers rubbing against each other could be heard as some of these books started sliding onto the floor. Both Zim and Dib looked up at the ceiling, where the ceiling tiles had quickly snapped back into place just as quickly as they had left their place before.

"You must study from these horrible books, kindly provided by the National Flipps Spelling Committee." Ms. Bitter continued. "You will spell every single word in this book correctly, and if you don't, you will receive a disciplinary phone call to your parents instructing them to punish you."

The class let out a huge groan, knowing that each and every one of them was going to be receiving this phone call next week. Dib raised his hand. Ms. Bitters turned her head to find him.

"Yes, Dib?" She was irritated in having to answer another question from him.

Dib lowered his hand. "Ms. Bitters, why do we have to keep bringing these stupid books home? They never change their content and they keep getting dumber and dumber with every edition."

Ms. Bitters glared at the large headed boy in annoyance. "Because these people force me to hand out this garbage every year and there's no way I'm letting it clutter up my classroom."

She turned to the class. "Now students, pick up a book and get out!"

The clock finally struck three, and the bell rang. Zim let out a sigh of relief, and started smiling contently as he jumped down from the seat of his desk. He walked to the back of the line, behind the other students picking up their new heavy books. Dib had stepped in line behind him and started to talk.

"I think I know who our new LOSER of the Spelling Bee is going to be," he began with a smug smirk. "I bet they don't have Spelling Bees on Irk, and the lot of you are all illiterate, drooling morons who are determined to making everyone in their lives miserable!"

Zim, now visibly annoyed, turned around. "Quite the opposite, Dib-stink! Irken smeets are given their full intellectual capacities at a mere two minutes old...not like this 18 years garbage that you miserable Earth monkeys have to wait to get anywhere NEAR as smart as our smeets!" He took a quick breath of air in and continued. "It'll be quite amusing to out spell such a pitiful excuse of human flesh such as yourself, as NO brain on this stinky planet is as AMAZING as ZIM'S! NO BRAIN!"

Dib, now irritated at having his intelligence mocked, held up his drawing of Zim he had been working on. "You see this, Zim!?" He shoved the drawing in Zim's face, making the alien take in every detail about the crude drawing. "This will help everyone start to see just how messed up you are, deep, deep down inside your _squeedilyspootch!_"

Zim stood, looking at the crayon drawing laden with anatomical and spelling errors. He saw variant spellings of the word squeedlyspooch crossed out on the paper in black crayon. He let out a small chuckle as he saw that the spelling of the organ gave the human such a hard time.

"It's spelled s-q-u-e-e-d-l-y-s-p-o-o-c-h, Dib. The more you know!"

Zim looked behind him and saw that he was next in line to grab his humongous spelling book. He quickly ran up to the remaining two books on the desk, leaving Dib in seething anger, and grabbed the one on top. The background was white and had a picture of a bumblebee with a bucktoothed grin and bulging, unfocused eyes on the center of the cover. Behind the bee there were pictures that had groups of students huddled together, obviously posing happily for the picture and holding up their medals and trophies. Around the bee picture, the words NATIONAL FLIPPS SPELLING BEE OFFICIAL SPELLING HANDBOOK were in a bold dark blue. Zim grimaced at the picture of the bee and looked up at Ms. Bitters.

"Get out!" She shouted and pointed towards the door.

Zim turned on his heel, holding the book to his chest and casually walked out the door. He had no idea how he was going to prepare for this Spelling Bee. How would he even prepare? The book was simply too large just to skim through in just one sitting. He would have to come up with some way to remember the words and their various spellings without wasting his time and without anyone else knowing what he was doing. He finally turned to Dib one last time as he was grabbing his own book.

"On Monday, you shall see! You shall see the brilliance that is Zim's brain! And there is NOTHING that you can do to stop me!" He ran out of the classroom.

"Jerk," Dib muttered to himself. He looked down at his drawing once more and found where he had written "squeedilyspootch." He took a marker from his pocket and crossed out the i and t. There was no way that alien was going to make a mockery out of him.


End file.
